


Trust

by 4vrAFangirl



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Season/Series 02 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 06:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7158176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4vrAFangirl/pseuds/4vrAFangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thoughts of Anna Strong while Hewlett rests after seeing them both safely returned to Whitehall. (Spoilers for 2x08)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read as a kind of companion piece to my other fic [Captivated](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6799075), but is a stand-alone fic.
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? I write for all manner of fandoms and ships! Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [afangirlreadsfics](http://www.afangirlreadsfics.tumblr.com)

“Please,” Anna asks, too desperate by half to care how much she would normally detest having to plead for anything, much less to do so with Mary Woodhull. “I know Major Hewlett is the only person who welcomes my presence here in Whitehall, but he came to fetch me to protect me from Simcoe. Give me the opportunity to make it up to him. Besides it will keep me out of the way of the rest of the house; you can spend more time with Thomas, and with Abraham once he is safely returned home,” she offers, knowing that this if nothing else might appeal to her. “Thank you,” Anna says softly, entirely grateful as Mary removes the key from her pocket, pressing it into Anna’s hand.

“Oh Edmund,” she whispers softly upon seeing his disheveled and sleeping form upon opening his door. The relief of seeing him alive is still thrumming through her veins, but taking him in while he’s unawares like this and so disturbing still, is difficult. She knows there is far more to the story than either Simcoe or he have told her yet, but it seems clear enough in going to see and fetch her back to Whitehall since his return that he’s overly taxed himself on her account. Grateful as she is for the temporary reprieve from Simcoe, the only person who wants her here and could possibly make her feel comfortable or welcome is unconscious. Tending to whatever he might need seems only right, and may at least keep her occupied here until he is well enough again.

Half a dozen loyal and competent redcoats are keeping a vigil about the house. Simcoe won’t be given the opportunity to take advantage of the Major’s weakened and recovering state of health, but Anna shuts and locks his door anyway. It isn’t much, and strictly speaking it isn’t very proper, but it calms her nerves a little to think she’s placed herself and one more barrier between Edmund and anyone that might disturb or come to bring him further harm, however silly it might be to take comfort in little more than a piece of wood.

Anna grabs the chair from the desk across the room and carries it carefully, noiselessly over to sit beside the bed. Unsettling as it is to see him like this, she doesn’t wish to disturb his sleep. A cautious hand reaches out, brushing from temple to forehead, determining a slight fever as the man shivers slightly. She flattens a cool palm against his brow for a moment, before slowly taking it away to wet a rag in the small washbasin on the dresser. He trembles again as she gently pushes untidy brown hair out of the way, and places the wet cloth. She’s not had many opportunities to see his hair before, and she thinks that perhaps it has grown longer during his captivity than he normally keeps it beneath his uniform’s wig, but he’s hardly any less handsome for it.

It’s not a thought she’s allowed herself to indulge in before, although this is far from the first time she’s been struck by it. Edmund Hewlett is a handsome man, if perhaps in a somewhat less traditional way. He is a moral, intelligent, decent man, and it is impossible now for her to pretend that since she first accepted his offer of friendship it hasn’t become increasingly more difficult for her to think of him in the same black and white, or even _red_ terms as Abe does. For Anna at least, Hewlett has become so much more than the uniform he wears and title he bears. He has allowed her to see him in a way she’s all but certain few, and certainly none other in Setauket ever have. And she likes what she’s seen, what she’s learned about him, finds herself liking him a little more with each passing revelation and moment have been afforded together. _A lot._ Certainly a lot more than she probably should given her loyalties and activities for the Rebel army. But the thought that there might not have been any more moments like that- that he might die before she can learn all the secrets and little quirks that make up Edmund Hewlett, had been devastating.

 _I thought you were lost_ , she had exhaled breathless against his cheek.

_I feared for you too._

She can still feel the warmth, the surprising softness of his sharp cheekbones under her lips, the muscles of his face twitch in surprise, then something else- relief perhaps. As long as there was no word, so long as Simcoe was away, she could fool herself into thinking that perhaps there was still a chance the Major was alive. Perhaps Simcoe had truly thought Hewlett dead, perhaps he had lied; she cannot be bothered to puzzle it out yet, will defer to the word of the man in front of her, the one she trusts most, but at the news that he had been lost she had crumbled. Nothing Simcoe could say or do would console or comfort her, even if he could she would scarcely have welcomed it, but he was at least solid enough at least to keep her upright while she had dissolved into sobs.

 _Good evening, Mrs. Strong_.

Those few simple words, that sure, but gentle voice she’d thought she might never hear again… She could do nothing but fly to his side; hadn’t even thought about it before she was kissing his cheek, Simcoe and his Rangers, Hewlett’s officers who had accompanied him forgotten, unimportant. Whatever he had endured, suffered, during his imprisonment paled to the fact that Edmund was standing before her once more. Now, however, in the relative safety, the silence, and peace of his room there is little else to think about, little more to do than take inventory of his injuries. Whether Mary acquainted her with none of them because she had not known them, or simply dislikes her that much, Anna doesn’t know. Edmund is Richard’s friend, so she cannot imagine that the Magistrate would have neglected to have a doctor see to him when first he returned to Setauket, unless Hewlett was stubborn enough to refuse one until he had seen her. Anna hopes for his sake this isn’t the case. His right foot is too heavily bandaged to know what has happened to it. The dressings will have to be changed, but it can wait a few hours more until he wakes. Anna has never had the opportunity to see his chest before now, but she thinks the scars that peek out from beneath the slightly open collar of his shirt look to be more recent. She can help see to those when he wakes as well.

“It’s alright,” she soothes softly, when he stirs a little as she turns the wet cloth over and places it once more on his brow. “You’re safe now. Rest,” she instructs him. She doesn’t want to lift his foot, not knowing what the damage of it is or the pain it might cause, but he cannot possibly keep warm sleeping atop the sheets and blanket as he is. A quick inspection under the bed reveals a spare and thick looking quilt that should do and Anna tucks it around him with care.

“Anna,” he whispers feverishly, halting her hands where they had been neatly pulling the quilt up to his shoulders. He doesn’t stir any further, isn’t awake, but she answers him anyway.

“I’m here, Edmund,” she promises. “I’m safe.” He sighs softly, relaxing back into the pillows, and the quilt she’s procured for him with a far more peaceful look on his face that pulls at her heart. It might be foolish, wishful thinking on her part, in an effort to find some way of repaying his kindness and sacrifices on her behalf, but Anna dares to think he may be drawing some level of comfort from her voice, and alights upon an occupation until he wakes again. There are a few books on the bedside table, even a few that she recognizes, perhaps she can read to him.

_“When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state…”_

She cannot account for precisely how long she has been reading now, but here she halts a little. Not because the words are unfamiliar, on the contrary they ring somehow all _too_ familiar though it has been some time since she last read this verse. Anna watches a moment Edmund’s chest as it slowly rises and falls beneath the quilt, before resuming her reading trying to quell the uneasy churning in her belly at what it means that she should identify so with this poem in particular.

The Major has never yet said so, but Anna has long suspected that while his offer some months ago had been for a ‘play-tonic’ friendship between them, that he may have hoped for something more. Not that he has ever lead her to feel in any way pressured, or obligated to offer him anything of the kind. Hewlett- _Edmund_ , she corrects herself in thought, has been nothing but the utmost gentleman to her. That she has repaid him by keeping secrets and lies breeds unrest in her heart and mind.

Between what had to be done for the Ring, and later his and Abe’s capture, there has been little time for her to dwell on what her own feelings towards the Major might be. She shudders now to recall having once so casually suggested storming the armory and shooting him for the sake of their cause. She had hardly known him to be anything more than his uniform then, might never have come to know him as she now does had such a thing come to pass. Her actions were never meant to be anything personal, but towards a much larger purpose and cause. Now that she knows him, respects and even admires the man that he is however, now that it’s clear he bears some level of affection for her, it seems cruel to continue as she has done before, and some part of her cannot help but feel conflicted, torn between the Cause and Edmund.

_“… For thy sweet love rememb’red such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”_

Does he love her; she wonders eyes scanning once more over his sleeping face. Does she want him to? There is a little time now to think on her feelings, sequestered from the rest of the world as they are while he recovers. Time to recognize many- even most- of her happiest moments in this last year have been because of the man whose care she’s now taken charge of. Her affair with Abraham while thrilling, inevitably left her feeling increasingly more hollowed for every dalliance shared between them; the knowledge that he cannot, that he will never abandon his son or obligation to Mary always in the back of her mind. A mistake. One she has made already too many times, but one she finds herself resolved to avoid repeating again. They all of them deserve better. And while she may not be truly deserving of the kind of unreserved care and respect Edmund has shown her, it is impossible to deny the feeling, her belief, that surprising as it may be he could make her happy.

The war, the King and his redcoats, how she had scorned and hated them, how certain she had been that they had taken everything from her. Her husband, and with him their property, her social standing, her agency… But perhaps it has not taken everything, or at least offered something new and different in its place. Her marriage to Selah while advantageous for them both had never been about love. Anna has never loved anyone the way she does Abraham. She can never love her husband, or even Edmund in the same fashion, but what she feels for Edmund is no less for its being far more subtle and gentle, innocent even in nature. She does love him, she realizes; and the fear that has prevented her from thinking on or acknowledging the inner-workings of her heart has never any fault of his own, but in hers.

She has spent nearly all the time they have had together and come to know one another deceiving him. It cannot be possible for them to have the kind of relationship either of them might wish for with this hanging between them. But can he forgive her? Pardon her crimes and confess them to none? Would he trust the sincerity of her heart and affection for him, or doubt perhaps everything he knew of her, convincing himself he’s cared only for a falsehood rather than a real person? Can she trust him with not only her heart, but her very life?

**Author's Note:**

> Anna is reading a book of Shakespeare's sonnets, the one being quoted in the fic is #29.


End file.
